Delhi University polls register lowest turnout since 2010

NEW DELHI: The Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections held on Friday had the lowest voter turnout since 2010. The voting percentage stood at 36.9% for

NEW DELHI: The Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections held on Friday had the lowest voter turnout since 2010. The voting percentage stood at 36.9% for morning colleges. In 2010, the overall voter percentage was 36%.

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This year, there has been a dip of 7.41% compared to last year when the voting percentage stood at 43.3%. There are a total of 1,23,241 voters in 51 colleges who voted in the DUSU elections.

While the polls result for individual colleges was declared on Friday itself, DUSU election results will be out on Saturday where the university with elect the president, vice president, secretary and joint secretary. There are a total of 18 candidates in the fray. For the past three years, ABVP has been winning all the central panel post.

This year, too , the National Students Union of India (NSUI), the students wing of the Congress party, won in 33 colleges. Out of 18 colleges where it contested, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), managed to win in one or two posts in 11 colleges.

Ramjas College had the lowest voting percentage at 13.34% and the Campus Law Centre stood at 15%. There was a low turnout at these centres as the college/centre level election was postponed in these centres.

“The Campus Law Centre used to have a lot of students. Due to the postponement of the centre election, not many students turned up here,” said Vikrant Yadav, third year student of the centre.

The other reason for the low turnout was because the first year students without identity cards were not allowed to vote. This year, too, due to a lot of confusion in the admission process, there are still hundreds of seats lying vacant in many colleges.

“I wasn’t allowed to vote at first. Then I had to go to the office and get my identity card issued,” said Neha, first year Political Science student at Miranda House.

Similarly, the second and third year students, who had paid fee online till August 31, had their names on the voters’ list for the elections.

“The DUTA movement against the evaluation boycott could only be resolved towards the end of July. This meant that results and readmissions have not been completed till now. DU then issued the notification that only those who had paid fee till August 31 could vote,” said Sunny Kumar, senior member of All India Students’ Association (AISA).

Overall the polling was peaceful, but there were protests by students in Aurobindo College, Miranda House and Hindu college as there were alleged attempts to cast multiple votes.

“We voted for the party that didn’t posters,” said a student of the group, No Poster Party at Miranda House.